After Afinil
by Michelle-Ann85
Summary: Life, thankfully, continued after the Singing. This follows the life of Maerad, Cadvan, Hem, Saliman and Hekibel after they played there part in defeating Sharma. Spoilers for The Singing
1. Chapter 1

The change ricocheted through the ground, coiling out as if from the epicentre of an earthquake. Cadvan of Lirigon, Saliman of Turbansk and Hekibel, daughter of Hirean all fell to the floor as the force of the reverberation threw them off their feet. Hekibel, the first to recover, pushed herself to sit up, her eyes watching in horror as Maerad of Pellinor, the girl who had the power to save Annar and the Seven Kingdoms, fell to the floor as if death.

'Saliman,' she cried as watched Hem, Maerad's brother, crumple to his knees, his face a picture of grief so profound she could hardly look at it. She reached over to shake Saliman, but he seemed unresponsive, and thus she cast her eyes to Cadvan, who unlike Saliman, seemed to be recovering himself. 'Cadvan,' she said, watching him right himself, 'Maerad.'

He didn't seem to hear her, as his eyes fixed on the scene that Hekibel had adverted her eyes from. She watched as horror overtook the handsome features of the Bard and he pushed himself to his feet, muttering in the Speech something she didn't understand, but what she knew to be an exclamation of grief. As she turned back to Saliman, who was finally coming to, the sound of sobbing stopped. Hekibel dared to look across and a gasp of surprise escaped her lips. Maerad had sat up, her arms around Hem and Cadvan had stopped in his tracks, even from here, Hekibel could sense his amazement.

'What happened?' asked Saliman, startling Hekibel. She turned to look back at the Turbansk Bard.

'I think she did it,' replied Hekibel in amazement. 'I thought she was dead.' Hekibel pulled herself to her feet before helping Saliman to his. He looked as pale as he had when she had returned to him after his brush with the White Sickness.

Following Cadvan, Saliman started to make his way over to Maerad and Hem, with Hekibel in his wake. She was almost running to keep up with him. However, as she was more concentrating on keeping up with Saliman rather than where he was going, she walked straight into his large figure when he stopped suddenly. 'By the Light,' muttered Saliman.

Hekibel looked around Saliman, to see Cadvan showering Maerad with kisses, all reserve forgotten. Maerad opened her eyes, a surprised but delighted look was on her face before she threw her arms around him and kissed him back. Hem raised his eyebrows, before turning away, his face a bright rising red, when he saw Saliman and started to run towards his friend and guardian.

Saliman looked back Hekibel with surprise. She looked at him with a knowing smile, but his face was one of puzzlement. 'You cannot tell me you did not realise?' asked Hekibel.

'I had no idea!' exclaimed Saliman. Looking back towards Maerad and Cadvan, still embraced in their passionate kiss.

Hekibel shook her head, laughing. 'How is that, that a Bard of such great power, who would not miss a party of Hulls beyond eye distance, can miss what is right in front of him?' She smiled at him. 'I have never seen a love so deep! Had any man looked at me in such way…' but she trailed off, looking somewhat embarrassed as Hem joined them.

Saliman looked at Hekibel in surprised before he turned to Hem. 'My boy,' he said, clapping him hard on his shoulder. 'That was well done,' he smiled widely at Hem before pulling the boy into a hug. 'Although, I had my doubts, but it feels as if all is well.'

Hekibel also hugged the hugged the young Bard. 'I feared for you, Hem, and for your sister. I have grown fond of her over the past weeks,' then with a mischievous smile added, 'I don't think I'm the only one.'

Hem smiled embarrassedly, and then looked up to the sky, scanning the strangely clear sky.

'Worried for Irc?' asked Saliman.

Hem nodded. 'He won't know where to find us, and we'll soon be on the move. Also, I worry that he hasn't even got to Lirigon.'

Saliman looked serious for a moment. 'I'm sure he'll get there.' He then turned to Hekibel. 'Are you okay?'

'I should be asking you that!' replied Hekibel, 'you were the one knocked silly.' She smiled warmly, before reaching up on her tiptoes and kissing Saliman's cheek. 'I'm fine.' She gave him a warm smile, and cast a look over in the direction of Cadvan and Maerad, who had finally broke apart and where now walking hand in hand to join them.

Saliman was looking at Cadvan with his eyebrows raised; Hem was looking everywhere but at them, while Hekibel just smiled, mainly at Maerad, who she pulled into hug. 'What did I tell you,' she whispered in the young Bard's ear.

'You are nothing but a knave,' Saliman was saying to Cadvan. He was looking very doubtfully at his friend, who instead of taking note of his friend, gave Maerad a wink instead. Saliman turned from his friend to Maerad, and pulled her into a hug. 'You have given us all reason to hope again, Maerad. Although, I did fear for you,' he pushed her out to arms distance to look her over. 'You're looking very thin, we should get to safety.'

'The safest place for miles is Innail,' said Cadvan, 'but with the Black Army matching across Annar, I don't fancy it to be an easy journey.'

Saliman nodded in agreement, forgetting his slight disapproval of his friend.

Maerad looked out over the landscape, now just the dull, deathly Hutmoors covered the expanse. She could no longer see Afinil as it once was, she turned to Cadvan and Saliman. 'I should like to leave here,' she stated almost expressionless, 'and properly never return.'

Beside her, Hem nodded in agreement, before once again, his eyes searched skyward. He wished that Irc was nearby and once again sent out his prayers to the Light that his small, yet boastful companion would return from his mission successful and safe. He attempted to mind touch the small bird, but found he was so spent from the singing that he wearily made his way over to Keru, instead. As he mounted, he suddenly looked about. 'What about Hulls?' he asked, turning to look at his friends.

Cadvan looked from Maerad, to Hem and back again. 'Hulls were bound to Sharma; it is likely that they have been destroyed as well. We should be safe from that threat, but doesn't mean to say that there are other things out there which are just as dangerous.' Again he glanced over at Maerad who was becoming steadily even paler. Until ten minutes ago, she had been the most dangerous thing in all of Annar and the Seven Kingdoms. 'But we should get away from here all the same,' he continued, as he mounted Darsor and held out a hand for Maerad to take so that she could get up behind him.

Saliman and Hekibel followed Hem and Cadvan's lead and mounted their steeds and they set back out the way they came. Both Saliman and Cadvan wove complicated glimmerspells and shields over the party, so that they might be able to pass though the lands unnoticed by all but Bards.

As they started off, Maerad wrapped her arms around Cadvan's waist and leaned into him, closing her eyes. He hadn't given up on her once, not even when she had wanted to use the darkest power she possessed to find and summon Hem. Perhaps, she wondered to herself, her mind being clearer than it had been since she and Cadvan had left Gent, this was what love truly was. She looked over at Hekibel, who was riding close to Saliman, and realised that she had done exactly what Cadvan had done – walked blindly into danger to remain with the one they loved. She looked away from Hekibel and closed her eyes. As she sat on the jolting horse, in blissful nothingness, she became aware that it was simply that, nothing. There was nothing inside her, no power bubbling just beyond the surface anymore. She opened her eyes in panic and opened her mouth as if to say something to Cadvan, but before the words formed in her mouth, she stopped, closed her mouth and her eyes again. What did it matter if she wasn't a Bard anymore, she had her life, which was more than she expected.

It was nearing dawn when the companions stopped, the four horses as tired as the riders. They made a small camp without fire in the shelter of a rare stone formation. They were few and far between in the Hutmoors, with the glimmerspells to protect them, they ate and then Saliman took the first watch. It wasn't long before he realised that Hekibel had chose to sleep closely to him. He looked down at the young woman, almost a child in his eyes, but she was beautiful and clever and she had come back for him and Hem. If it hadn't been for her, they would never have got as far as they had. For a moment, he thought about the small kiss she had given him after the Singing, to think about it had his skin tingle. She had followed him without hesitation into a battle that by rights, she should have missed, but as he looked at her, he knew that if they had not encounter each other on the road to Til Amon, then her fate would have been similar to that of her friends. He smiled to himself, how strange to find love when one isn't looking, and realised that the same thing had happened to Cadvan. He knew for sure that when he had first met Maerad in Innail, nearly a year ago, the Cadvan felt no attraction to her, and yet, something had changed, even since Norloch.

How Hekibel had noticed was beyond him, Cadvan certainly had a way of keeping such things to himself, but in the relief of finding Maerad still breathing he had forgotten his reserve. Saliman smiled to himself, it was about time too, and he firmly believed his friend deserved some happiness and love after all he had done to right the wrongs of his past.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, Saliman felt a hand on his shoulder. 'You should rest my friend,' said Cadvan, sitting down beside his friend. 'You are still looking unwell after your bout of White Sickness.'

At his words Saliman looked over to his young charge, Hem. 'That boy worked a miracle,' he muttered back, before looking back around at Cadvan. 'He showed great aptitude for Healing in Turbansk, if not anything else.'

Cadvan raised his eyebrows in question and Saliman chuckled in his low voice. 'He did not fit in well at the school,' he elaborated, 'the boy can do amazing feats of magery, even your disguising spell to a degree that I cannot, yet, he would not learn his lettering.'

'We all go though a rebellious stage,' replied Cadvan wisely. 'I'm sure he'll apply himself better, now, without the threat of war hanging over him.'

Saliman nodded in agreement, before excusing himself to his makeshift bed, which he moved closer to Hekibel. He was fast into sleep before he could even dwell on his actions to be closer to this beautiful woman.


	2. Chapter 2

Maerad was the first to wake up; she found it difficult to sleep with the sun beating down on her skin, heating her body beyond comfortable levels. Shielding her eyes, she glanced up to the sky. The rains had cleared to a warm, spring day. She had got to the point where she doubted she would ever see sunlight again. Her legs felt shaky as she stood up, but the warmth of the sun gave her strength. Maerad looked around before making a beeline for the dark figure sat just a little way from her. She lowered herself to the floor beside Cadvan, bringing her knees up to her chin and hugging her shins. For a while, they both just looked out over the expanse of the Hutmoors, and once again, she was glad she could no longer see those visions of death.

Eventually Cadvan cocked his head towards Maerad and glanced at her. 'You should be sleeping.'

She shook her head. 'The sun was too warm,' again she looked up to the sky, shielding her eyes against the brightness. 'Never thought I'd see the sun again,' she commented, meeting Cadvan's warm gaze, 'didn't think I'd see anything again to be fair. I thought I'd died.'

'As did I,' replied Cadvan, taking her hand. 'Such darkness filled my mind when I saw you lying there, I was sure I had saved you from slavery only to lead you to your death.'

Maerad smiled, and then chuckled after a moment. 'Even if I hadn't been the Fated One, with the life you lead, it could have been a very real possibility anyway.' She thought about all the times her life had nearly come to an end before her Name had been revealed to her. 'And it might still come to an end, with the Black Army between us and Innail.'

'Aye,' agreed Cadvan, 'it is likely that even if the Hulls have be destroyed, then we may run into the scattered forces as the flee Annar, and that I fear could be even more dangerous.' He looked back out over the Hutmoors.

With their talk of the Black Army, Maerad knew where Cadvan's thoughts lie. 'I'm sure Irc has made it,' she reassured him, squeezing his hand. He replied with a tender kiss to her knuckles, and her heart soared once again. 'Should we not move from this place,' she asked after a while, his words about a fleeing Black Army scared her more than the well organised army they had seen riding north a few days before.

'We should,' agreed Cadvan, 'but our friends need rest.' He looked over at Saliman, who he had been worried for ever since he had revealed that Hem had healed him from the White Sickness. The Turbansk Bard had not yet regained his full strength and yet they could not tarry. But then, neither were Hem or Maerad well enough for the journey, but if they remained it would surely be to the death of them all.

Maerad, had momentarily forgotten that she and Cadvan were not travelling alone, as they had been over the past year. Had it just been the two off them, they would have just left when she had awoken. Instead she huddled in closer to Cadvan while he kept watch and waited for the others to rise of there own accord.

The five travellers pushed their horses hard so that they would not be anywhere near the Hutmoors or the road that lead to Lirigon by the time the fleeing Black Army reached them, they were also doing there best to avoid the corrupt schools of Desor and Ettinor. When they reached the road, they were faced with utter devastation. Trees had been uproots, the road crushed to gravel and it was littered with festering dead bodies.

'What happened here?' asked Maerad, looking around. Her face was a horrified mask as she looked up and down along the wide unwinding road.

Cadvan turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. 'Slaves of Den Raven,' he said simply.

Maerad breathed in, her body shocked. It had not been long ago that she had been a slave, and for all the injustices, it seemed nothing to what was before her. She closed her eyes and leaned into Cadvan's back, not noticing the look of distress on her brother's face.

Hem was looking among the bodies, his face drawn and empty. Saliman drew up to the boy and lay his hand on Hem's small shoulders. He knew what the boy was seeing; his friend, Zelika, over and over again. Hem kept Keru walking sedately on, and Saliman drew back, leaving Hem beside Hekibel.

'Cadvan,' muttered Saliman in a low voice, 'we should get away from here,' as he looked over at Hem.

Both Cadvan and Maerad looked over to the youngest member of the group. Maerad suddenly felt herself wash over with panic. She looked back to Saliman, the unasked question on her lip.

This time, Saliman addressed Hem's concerned sister. 'He had a friend, Zelika, she tried to follow her brother into Dagra and was killed.' Saliman paused for a moment, looking down to the ground thinking of the spirited young girl who had hidden in Turbansk when she should have been headed to safety. 'Hem didn't see it happen, thank goodness, what was done to her…' Saliman looked up from his thoughts and back at Maerad. 'No doubt he is feeling the loss of her deeply, and seeing all this.' He stopped talking to Maerad and looked at Cadvan. 'Look at them all, they're just children.'

That's when Maerad realised. She hadn't looked too closely, but now she did, a gasp of horror left her lips and she put her hand over he lips. 'By the Light,' she muttered, looking around. For the first time, she could see the horror of Sharma and it made her not only sick to the stomach but also glad she had been given the power to destroy what had caused the scene before her. It was worse than the visions of Afinil.

Maerad climbed down from Darsor and slowly walked over to Hem and Keru. The young horse nudged Maerad's neck as she stroked her. 'Hem,' she said quietly, taking the boy's hand. 'It's okay, come on.' She took Keru's rein's and walked out towards the road, leading Keru carefully through the maze of destruction. Hem remained sedate long after they had left the bodies and road behind.

The travellers had decided to make there way across country and avoid the long road that lead from Lirigon to the south. The day after the harrowing experience at the road, Maerad was once again riding with Cadvan on Darsor. They moved swiftly on, the desire to see their friends in Innail pushing them harder than they had before. Cadvan lead the way over the flat landscape as he knew the area well, but, of course, he knew all of Annar well.

From the back of the group, where Hem had fallen back a little, Keru was not as strong as the other horses and was flagging slightly, came a call of surprise. Cadvan spun Darsor around so sharply that Maerad had to squeeze Cadvan hard to remain the on the horse, let alone upright. 'Sorry,' he muttered to Maerad.

'Irc,' cried Hem, once he had recovered himself, and scratched the large bird's neck.

'_Irc flew long and hard,'_ said the bird, _'but I found the Bard and gave him the message. The Bard said I was a clever bird and they made better plans to defend the city. He gave me plenty to eat but no shiny things.'_

Cadvan smiled brightly. 'Irc, you are most certainly the Saviour of Lirigon.'

However, the bird had put his head under his wing and had fallen asleep on Hem's arm. 'Don't let him hear you say that,' said the young Bard darkly, but visibly brightened by Irc's return. 'He'll gone on about it for the rest of his life, even now, daily, he reminds me he is the King's Messenger.'

There was laughter from the group.

'Well, Hem,' said Saliman, smiling at his young charge, 'you have certainly showed an aptitude for excellent idea's since I've known you,' Saliman turned back to look at the group as they turned and continued on there way. 'Did I tell you that in Turbansk, Hem called all the birds in the city to try and defeat the deathcrows that Imank sent to attack us?' Saliman laughed as he looked over his shoulder and saw Hem was blushing. 'The birds succeeded and now songs have been written about the deed. He'll be remembered and honoured by the people of the Suderain for a long time.'

Maerad looked around to see her brother blushing even more furiously that he had when Saliman had started the story. Hekibel was looking at the four Bards in amazement, as she realised she was in the company of living legends. She looked down to the floor, watching the floor moved underneath her as her horse trotted along. She suddenly felt very small and insignificant in this company, not, she thought to herself, that she had been much before.

All of a sudden, Saliman's large hand grabbed her own small fingers. 'Are you alright, Hekibel?'

She suddenly looked very impish. 'I'm suddenly starting to feel slightly overwhelmed by this all,' she said, 'here I am in the company of Bard's who are things of legend, and all I am is a lowly player, without an audience to play to.' She was speaking very quietly, so that the others would not hear her, as she was fond of everyone she now travelled with. 'Yet,' she said, suddenly becoming more confident, 'I could not have bore the thought of leaving you, when I was offered the chance, not again. If I had gone with Grigar to Innail, I would be sat there now, grieving, believing you to be dead, and yet, we still might not make it, but know this, Saliman, Bard of Turbansk, I would follow you anywhere!'

A wide grin spread across Saliman's face and he gently squeezed Hekibel's hand. 'And I rather think I would want you to follow me,' he admitted as he leaned over to her to kiss her gently on the cheek, which was not an easy thing to do on horseback.

At the back of the group Hem rolled his eyes and smiled. Maerad had found Cadvan and Saliman had Hekibel, but then a pain pierced his heart, and in his mind's eye he saw Zelika, beautiful and smiling at him. Ahead of him, no one saw him shed a tear for the girl he swore he would have married.


End file.
